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There seems to be a singular fitness in the fact, that so 
many Huguenot descendants from various parts of the 
United States, should be assembled this evening in the 
Huguenot Church of New York, to commemorate the 200th 
Anniversary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and to 
listen with thrilled interest to the eloquent words in which 
we have been told of the brave men and women, who became 
exiles from their beloved France, rather than give up the 
right to worship their God, according to the reformed doc- 
trines, which they believed to be the true exposition of His 
Holy Scriptures. 

We are not assembled to commemorate that Revocation, 
but rather to express our gratitude, that the silver lining of 
the dark cloud which two centuries ago overshadowed the 
exiles, has been turned to us, and we are now able to appre- 
ciate the blessings which have resulted from the then 'ap- 
parent chastening. Very deep was the gloom when the 
cruel Edict of Revocation was proclaimed, preceded as it had 
been by the bloody persecutions and dragonnades which 
foretold it The children of Israel left Egypt laded with 
the spoils thrust upon them by their oppressors in their 
anxiety to be rid of a people for whose deliverance such dire 
plagues had been visited upon Pharaoh and his people. Not 
so with the Huguenot exiles. Thrust out of their country, 
yet visited with severest penalties for endeavoring to go : 
husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and 
sisters torn apart from each other while endeavoring to com- 
ply with the sentence of banishment: despoiled of their 
property and goods : escaping by flight, as best they could : 
in penury : with physical sufferings, not a tithe of which 
has ever been told, or can ever be learned : the pious exiles, 
bearing their heavy crosses, sought refuge in foreign lands: 



those who fled for homes to the new world, bravmg the 
hardships of the w'ilderness, and the ferocity of wild beasts 
and of savages not less ferocious than the beasts of the forests. 
Their simple, humble faith in Him whom they had learned 
to worship as Lord of Lords, and to serve as King of Kings, 
gave them strength to bear the crosses, hoping that He who 
had permitted such to be laid upon them, would in His own 
good time, replace the crosses with crowns. We are gathered, 
to express our gratitude to Him for the crowns. 

Very abundant is our cause for such gratitude. The 
religious and political liberty enjoyed in this land : the 
j)rotection given by the laws : the prosperity wdiich in two 
centuries has converted the wilderness into a garden, a 
granary for the world : and the inflence which the Huguenot 
exiles to America exercised in bringing about such religious 
End political liberties, framing its laws, developing the re- 
sources of the country, all speak for the character of those 
who preferred exile with its hardships, to an abandonment 
of their religious convictions. The descendants of the Hu- 
guenots, while deploring the injuries which resulted to the 
fair, country of their forefathers from the ruthless persecu- 
tions and banishments, can now see how the dark cloud 
which overshadowed the exiles in their flight, had hidden 
in it a silver lining for the dissemination in other lands of 
the arts, sciences, education, faithful obedience to righteous 
civil laws, which the exiles carried with them : and for the 
industry, sobriety, integrity, and conscientious observance 
of religious duties, which characterized their forefathers into 
whatsoever lands they went ; all of which impressed them- 
selves upon all the peoples among whom they settled. 

Dr. Baird in the Rise of the Huguenots, quotes Bishop 
Jewel, as saying of the Huguenots who in 1564 took refuge 
in England, " They are our Brethren, they live not idly. If 
they have houses of us, they pay rent for them. They hold 
not our grounds but by making due recompense. They beg 
not in our streets, nor crave anything at our hands, but to 
breathe our air, and to see our sun. They labor truly, they 
live sparefully. They are good examples of virtue, travail, 






faith and patience. The towns in which they abide are 
happy, for God doth follow them with his blessings." 

Professor Tuttle, of Cornell University, in his History of 
Prussia, says of the Emigration to that country, " The repeal 
of the Edict of Nantes, and the expulsion of the Huguenots 
opened the way for French exiles, who came in large num- 
bers, were liberally treated, and gave a powerful impulse 
to industry, above all in the finer mechanical arts. * * * 
Besides the German scholars there was also at Berlin 
a large number of French Protestant refugees who were 
already distinguished in letters and science. Such were 
James Lenfant, who was a fierce enemy of the Jesuits, and 
wrote histories of the Church Councils ; Isaac Beausobre, who 
is still known by his learned work on the IVEanichaens ; 
Vignolles, who prepared a chronology of the Old Testament ; 
and Lacroze,who made researches into the Coptic, and other 
obscure tongues. These were all men of fervent piety, and 
their Gallic wit, taste, and eloquence, agreeably seasoned 
the intellectual diet of Berlin Society. * * A circum- 
stance which will strike the attention of any person who 
looks at the roll of the early members of the Academy, is the 
large number of French names. It was a number too, 
wholly out of proportion to the total strength of the French 
immigration. Exact data are of course not available. The 
refugees were dispersed throughout the Elector's dominions, 
and the movement itself continued for many years, but on 
any reasonable estimate, the ratio of scholars among the 
exiles must excite amazement. It proves that Protestantism 
in France, at least as represented by Protestants who fled 
from France to Prussia, was not a low delusion of the igno- 
rant populace, or, on the other hand, a mere fancy of shallow 
and sceptical nobles, but an intelligent conviction on the 
part of some of the most erudite men of the age ; men who 
joined learning to piety ; and who, when banished from their 
country, carried the zeal of scholars, as well as the faith of 
Christians among the people who gave them an asylum. Some 
among the refugees, such especially as Lenfant and Beausobre, 
were pulpit orators, widely known for the fervor and elo- 



quence of their sermons. The civil service and the army 
found employment for others. And even the artisans, who 
naturally formed the greater number in every French 
Colony, were not only among the best whom their own 
country had' produced, but were also vastly superior in 
sobriety, in intelligence, in skill, in the range of their tal- 
ents, to the workmen of Prussia. It is said that over forty 
new branches of industrial art were introduced by them." 

Who can forget the influences exerted upon the Christian 
world by Farel, Beza, Calvin, and many others who could 
be named. The Zurich letters alone, containing the corre- 
spondence of Calvin with the English Divines of that day, 
shew the impress which he made upon the English Reformed 
Church. Throughout the world, wherever the Protestant 
Church is known, these Huguenot names take rank as peers 
of all who labored in the cause of a reformed Christianity. 

If there were no other record of Beza left, but that grand 
Colloquy at Poissy, could any one fail to see the stamp which 
he made upon the religious convictions of every thinking 
people. 

While the simple, yet sublime Liturgies of the Reformed 
Churches continue to be the media through which Protes- 
tants using a liturgical service, address their supplications 
to God, no one can fail to see the influence exerted by Farel, 
in framing a worship so beautiful, so humble, so consoling, 
so ennobling. 

The Grand Monarch had driven into exile his Huguenot 
subjects : did he dream, how soon the Marshal de Schomberg, 
one of their number, would be one of the illustrious Generals 
under William of Orange, to vindicate by force of arms, 
against himself, the great interests of Protestantism, and 
finally force the author of the Revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes, to terms of peace humbling to his pride, and disastrous 
to his kingdom. 

That revocation deprived France of so large a part of its 
truly religious element, that little more than a century had 
passed, ere the streets of Paris which two centuries before 
had run red with blood of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 



again streamed with blood shed by citizens of that same 
cit}', who denying the existence of God, erected an idol, the 
Goddess of Reason, and as two centuries previously their 
forefathers had butchered Huguenots in the name of Faith, 
now again butchered thousands in the name of this idol, the 
symbol of all want of faith. We would vainly close our 
minds to the convictions of reason, did we not see in the 
horrors of those da^^s of the French Revolution, how, in 
that country, the influence of the conservative, religious and 
faithful Huguenots was wanting and missed. Had that 
part of its population been retained, France would probably 
have achieved political liberty, without the infamies of such 
bloody sacrifices. 

The study of the civil law, to this day, causes the Univer- 
sities of Germany, to take rank among the first institutions 
of the continent of Europe. And the introduction of a 
knowlecge of such law, is attributed to the Huguenot refu- 
gees in Prussia. Weiss, in his History of the French Pro- 
testant refugees, gives the names of many who were ap- 
pointed by the Elector of Brandenburgh, as Judges of 
Colonies, and adds, " The Judges of the Colonies, several of 
whom were able jurists, first introduced the principles of 
Roman Law, with which French Legislation is deeply im- 
bued, into German practice. Thence came that tendency to 
civil equality, which shewed itself in Prussia very long 
before the French Revolution of 1789, and which prepared 
the brilliant part which was to be played by that Kingdom 
in modern times." A century and a third later than this 
emigration, a descendant of the Huguenots who fled to 
South Carolina, while representing the United States at the 
Court of Belgium, diligently pursued the study of such civil 
law, as he perceived its great importance. Returning to the 
United States, after serving a term in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, the Hon. Hugh S. Legare was appointed Attor- 
ney-General of the United States, and by his able opinions, 
especially on great questions of International Law, mani- 
fested the very important influence exerted by the Hugue- 
not refugees, in shaping the great Code of Laws under which 



6 

so large a part of the Continent of Europe, now administers 
justice. 

In science, Desaguliers, descendant of an Huguenot exile, 
a pupil of Newton, vindicated the confidence placed in him 
by his illustrious teacher, and by his public lectures con- 
tributed greatly to the wider dissemination, and better un- 
derstanding of the philosophy of his preceptor. And Denis 
Papin in 1767, worked out the problem of the adaptability 
of steam, to the ordinary purposes of life, inventing the 
steam engine, in fact. 

It is a grand feature of the Hebrew people wherever scat- 
tered, that they so care for their indigent, that a Jew beggar 
is a rarity. The Huguenots sorely tried as they had been, 
and despoiled as they were of property, very early began 
associations for the relief of the more necessitous among 
themselves, and the Hospital for Poor French Protestants, 
in London, is a noble monument to their laudable desire to 
support and care for their ovv^n needy and distressed. The 
oldest charitable Society in Charleston, the South Carolina 
Society, owes its institution, for similar purposes, to the 
Huguenot refugees to that colony. 

No one can study the development of the mechanical in- 
dustries in England, Holland, Prussia, Ireland, and wherever 
else these refugees found shelter, without perceiving the 
marked influence and improvement which rapidly shewed 
itself. In woolens, silks, glasses, linens, and other branches 
too numerous to name, the inferior work of the several coun- 
tries became converted into skilled labor. I will illustrate 
this thought, by one fact only. When the Huguenots first 
fled to England, the paper used in that Kingdom was of a 
coarse, brownish character, but under the teaching and ma- 
nipulation of these refugees, English paper has long since 
become a synonym for excellence in that branch of manu- 
facture. 

Instances such as above alluded to are mentioned to shew 
the Huguenot influence in other lands than our own. We 
are here, however, to-night, for the more especial purpose, of 
considering the influences exerted by them in the United 



States, and expressing our gratitude to Him who led them 
into the wilderness of the new world, for the character which, 
under His teachings, they brought with them, to impress 
itself upon the growing institutions and prosperity of this 
great country. 

From the condition of things existing among the original , 
settlers in the new world, we naturally cannot look for much 
of written material furnished by themselves from which to 
learn what was their earlier life in the Colonies. All, of 
whatever nationality or denomination, were too engrossed 
in the strtiggle for the preservation of life, to have time or 
opportunity to leave much of written history connected with 
themselves. We are consequently left to glean from public 
records, from tradition, from .the accounts given by travellers 
visiting them for trade, or other purposes, or from brief and 
scattered memoranda to be found in old family Bibles, or 
fragments of letters, what were their privations and toils, and 
by what heroic exertions they finally triumphed over their 
difficulties, and laid deep the broad foundation on which 
our present liberties, privileges, civilization, and powerful 
influence upon the other peoples of the world, have arisen. 

These settlers came to a land where there was no law, save 
such as they brought with them, and put into execution. 
Whetlier Cavalier or Puritan, Dutch or Swede, Scotch, Irish, 
Pallatine or Swiss, or other nationality, Walloon, Huguenot, 
Quaker, Presbyterian, Churchman, Baptist or other denomi- 
nation, they were thrown together in greater or lesser degree 
to work out the problem of building up a code of laws, and 
institutions which should ultimately enure for the common 
benefit of all. With the differences of views, and prejudices 
which necessarily were brought over by such various settlers, 
there were, as was to be expected, many jars and contentions, 
before the contact and commingling could unite into a har- 
monious whole. Very far is it from my intention to intimate 
that the Huguenot element alone, produced the grand cosmo- 
politan people who now constitute the people of the United 
States, and by their very cosmopolitanism worked out the 
toleration, and religious and political liberties, which cliarac- 



8 

terize, at this day the institutions, and laws of the United 
States. But I do mean, distinctly to claim, that the charac- 
teristics of the Huguenot element, did contribute very mate- 
rially to bring about such result. 

W. R. Williams in his lectures on Baptist history, says, 
'"So of the French Protestant body, how noble is the great 
record of the French Huguenots. How much did they 
suffer at home ; and how blessed was the influence which 
they bore abroad to Prussia and Holland, to England and 
to Scotland, to Ireland and to our own North America. Not 
long since a Frenchman of science recorded his sense of the 
Divine nemesis, that among the soldiers who pressed the 
siege of Paris around the writer's place of study, so many 
were under the ba)iners of Germany, serving against France 
as the children of Huguenot exiles that Louis XIV. had 
hounded and peeled, returning in God's mysterious arrange- 
ments to plague the land where their forefathers had been 
so cruelly treated." 

It will be interesting to review very briefly, some of the 
characteristics of the Huguenot exiles to America. " In 1686 
a small French colony organized itself at New Oxford. The 
same year a French church was founded at Boston, and ten 
years after received as pastor a refugee minister of France, 
named Daille." At new Rochelle, one of the earliest acts of 
the immigrants was the erection of a church. "A small wooden 
building was first erected. The second Huguenot Church 
was built of stone. * * While they were building the 
church every one was anxious to contribute something 
to its progress. Females assisted, by carrying mortar in 
their aprons, and stones in their hands." That first wooden 
church was probably built before the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes. In Charleston, South Carolina, the first 
colony was one of about ninety persons, sent out by Charles 
II. in 1680, arriving at that town in the early spring of the 
year, when as yet there was not a score of dwellings erected. 
This colony settled on the banks of the Cooper River in the 
vicinity of the new town. There is no positive evidence 
when they erected a church, but in 1681, a lot in the town 



9 

was granted, and on the margin of the grant, it is desig- 
nated " ffrench Church," although the grant was to an in- 
dividual, since under the then laws of the Province, while 
seven persons could organize a congregation, yet the land 
must be held in trust. Every circumstance to be learned from 
contemporaneous records, seems to indicate, that a French 
Protestant Church was organized in Charlestown, in the 
early spring of 1681, and that the congregation worshippped 
on the spot now occupied by the Huguenot Church of 
Charleston, and have continued so to do from 1681 to the 
present day. When the larger immigration, after the revoca- 
tion, took place, the more recent comers, most probably, 
found this congregation already organized, and a building 
already erected in which its worship was conducted. The 
new comers began to colonize, very speedily, from Charles- 
town, and almost immediately ensuing, we find three other 
congregations organized, one on the Eastern bank of the 
Cooper River, known as Orange Quarter, one on the West- 
ern bank, known as St. John's Berkley and one at James 
Town on the Santee River. In December, 1700, Lawson, 
travelling along the Santee, finds the pious Huguenots 
returning on Sunday, from their church, to be reached only 
by many miles of travel, along rough roads, through dense 
swamps, and across deep creeks, passed by the canoes or 
periaugers kept at these creeks for such purposes. 

In this Huguenot Church of New York, successor of the 
original Pine Street Church, and on an occasion such as the 
present, we can almost fancy we hear the tramp of the new 
Rochellers coming along the road, as they journey to com- 
mune in that venerated Church of their Fathers, and we 
listen with rapt attention for the 60th Psalm of Beza and 
Marot, with which they accompanied their march. We can 
almost see their wagons encamped around the walls of the 
church, with parents and children, young and old, awaiting 
the rising sun, to commence their humble prayers, and 
return their grateful thanks at being able to assemble for 
the worship of God according to their simple ritual, without 
fear, or contradiction. 



10 

And while listening to the march of the new Rochellers, 
there comes to our ears, the echo from the far off Church in 
Charlestown, " whither the Huguenots on every Lord's Day 
gathered from their plantations of the Cooper, and taking 
advantage of the ebb, and flow of the tide, they might all be 
regularly seen, the parents with their children whom no 
bigot could now wrest from them, making their way in light 
skiffs, through scenes so tranquil, that silence was broken 
only by the rippling of oars, and the hum of the flourishing 
village at the confluence of the Rivers." 

The recorded wills and deeds of many immigrant Hugue- 
nots of South Carolina bear evidences of zeal for tlieir 
Churches, and their poor, by bequests or conveyances of 
lands for such purposes. 

Elias Horry, the emigrant, by his will devised a tract of 
land of about five hundred acres, for the purpose of estab- 
lishing a free school in tlie Parish in which he resided. 
Somewhat later, Benjamin Faneuil erected and donated to 
the City of Boston, for public purposes, the Hall, which has 
become historical under the soubriquet of the " Cradle of 
Liberty." 

The author of the Huguenots says : " Wherever the Hugue- 
nots settled they were among the most estimable citizens." 
Weiss adds : " The American Colonies were largely remu- 
nerated for the wisely generous hospitality, by the services 
which the exiles rendered them." And the first writer, 
assigns a reason, which is so just as to commend itself to all 
impartial minds : " They were not adventurers in search of 
wealth, they were not men who fled their native country 
after having lost for.tune and reputation ; but high hearts, 
fervent in zeal for religion, and resolved never to surrender 
their consciences to the imperious calls of Government or the 
vengeance of monarchs." 

The brief allusion made to the simple piety, and to the 
interest in education, and the promotion of the public good^ 
are but intended as illustrations of the characteristics of the 
Huguenots, and which impressed them for the common weal, 
upon all the communities in which they were intermingled. 



11 

But in addition to these, there was one characteristic which 
was destined to bear very abundant and lasting fruit upon 
American soil. The very determination, born of their reli- 
gion, to resist all attempt to restrain or coerce their religious 
worship, or subject their consciences to subjection, wrought 
in the Huguenot mind a true knowledge of a great political 
liberty, and as they asserted this political liberty at La 
Rochelle and Montauban, so they carried it with them 
wheresoever they went, and especially brought it to the Colo- 
nies of North America. Here while asserting no peculiar 
rights or privileges, they were steadfast and unbending in 
the claim to an equal participation in the fullest degree with 
all other colonists of whatever nationality or creed. This 
claim, made while the wars of Louis XIV were so greatly 
disturbing the peace of Europe, and inflaming the national 
prejudices of the other Provincial settlers, was yet so just, 
and so addressed itself to the English Government, as well 
as to the Colonists themselves, that eventually it resulted in 
their being accorded the very fullest participation in every 
right, franchise, privilege or advantage enjoyed by every 
other class of Colonists. And the inflexible patriotism with 
which, in all the English and French, Spanish or Indian 
wars conducted in North America, the Huguenot descend- 
ant, embraced and supported the Government of England, 
fully vindicated that Government in the wisdom of its course 
to them. While the almost universal adoption of the patriot 
side in the war of the Revolution, told in strongest terms of 
the true conception of political liberty with which the 
Huguenot exile had been imbued by his religious teachings, 
and had brought with him, to be practiced when occasion 
should require. 

It would be a theme of deep interest to dwell upon the 
influences which the Huguenot descendants exerted, in as- 
sisting their fellow colonists to work out the problem of the 
republican government, which the revolutionary war has 
created as a great palladium for human liberty, upon all 
mankind. But time admonishes that I can but briefly state 
a few facts, as evincing this. " Three men. Presidents of the 



12 

old Congress which conducted the United States through 
the revolutionary war, were descendants of French Protest- 
ant refugees. Henry Laurens of South Carolina. John Jay 
of New York. Elias Boudinot of New Jersey." The first 
Chief Justice of the State of New York, and the first Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was John 
Jay. In nothing was the character of Gen. Francis Marion, 
more illustrious, than in his noble stand at the Jackson- 
borough Assembly in South Carolina in 1781, when he re- 
sisted the sequestration laws against the Tories of that State: 
a resistance made when a price was set by the British upon 
his own head ; when he was hunted with unsparing malig- 
nity as the Swamp Fox, whom to destroy was an act of most 
laudable warfare ; when his own property was lying so de- 
vastated, that not a building was standing, nor a bushel of 
food was grown, and when the troops which he commanded 
had been so hounded and peeled, as had been done to his 
ancestors by Louis XIV, that they did not have a sufficiency 
of clothing to be able to appear on parade, for very decency 
sake. Gabriel Manigault above the age of 75 years and 
incapable of bearing arms, had placed the whole of his for- 
tune, over $200,000, at the command of his State, and when 
in 1779 Prevost invaded South Carolina, and appeared be- 
fore the lines of (Charleston, this aged patriot not only 
shouldered his own musket and repaired to the trenches, 
but took in his hand with him his little grandson, Joseph 
Manigault, a lad of 14, to offer their lives if necessary, for 
the maintenance of their country's liberties. 

Wherever commerce is known throughout the civilized 
world the eminent services of Mathew Fontaine Maury, a 
Huguenot descendant, is recognized in the Signal service, 
holding out to those who go down to the deep, the warning 
of danger, and foretelling from whence it threatens. In 
him, the Huguenot influence, is felt not alone in his own 
America, but throughout the nations of the earth. 

He is said to be a benefactor of the whole Human family, 
who will cause an oar of corn to grow, where else it was 
sterile, and in his scientific development of the phosphate 



13 

rocks so long buried and unknown for useful purposes in the 
earth, St. Julien Ravenel, has given untold millions to rise 
up and call him blessed. 

In manufactures, arts, sciences, education, religious earnest- 
ness and toleration, in laws, and in the steadfast perseverance 
for the promotion of civil and political liberty, the Huguenot 
descendant has so impressed himself upon the world, and 
especially upon the United States, that we are not only 
justified in claiming it for that people that they have exer- 
cised a most potent influence, but to fill us this evening with 
gratitude that under the dark cloud which overshadowed 
him in his flight, we are now able to see the bright silver 
lining, and be grateful to Him who led him forth, with 
characteristics so grand, so simple, so elevating. 

We have listened with deepest interest to the eloquent 
language in which we have been told by the eminent 
author of the rise of the Huguenots, of men and women so 
courageous and brave ; and to Dr. Henry M. Baird, not only 
we of Huguenot descent, but all who love their country, and 
their country's good, all who delight in seeing the good 
which is in human nature brought into light, are indebted 
in a great debt of gratitude. 

As representing the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, 
I ask permission, not only, cordially to second the resolu- 
tions already offered, but in asking their adoption to ask the 
adoption of that which I will now read : 

Resolved, " That the warm thanks of this assembly and of 
the Huguenot Society of America are hereby tendered to 
Professor Henry M. Baird, D. D., for the very able, learned 
and striking address, to which we have just listened, and 
that a copy be requested for publication by the Society." 

Dr. Baird : In the name of the Huguenot descendants of 
South Carolina, permit me to offer and pray your acceptance 
of this unassuming little floral bouquet. It presents to the 
eye, no gay exhibition of colors, nor would it attract especial 
attention- at an horticultural exhibition. But as the virtues, 
worth and qualities, which characterized the Huguenot, 



14 

were modest, and unassuming, exerting their quiet, but gen- 
tle and determined influences among those with whom they 
commingled, from the intrinsic value of the qualities, and 
not from any show. So this little bouquet grown and gath- 
ered in our sunny land, may be considered as typical of our 
forefathers' noble qualities. Scatter these little blossoms 
among your papers, and day after day and week after week, 
you will find the delicate perfume permeating all your 
papers, and quietly imparting that fragrance, so touchingly 
told by Ireland's gifted poet son : 

" Like the vase in which roses liave once been distilled, 
You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will. 
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." 

In this little tribute, we desire to exhibit to you, person- 
ally, our thanks for the noble language in which you have 
told us of noble men, the Huguenots. Your words have 
deeply impressed upon us the truth of the beautiful thought 
so aptly expressed by a favorite son of New England : 

" Lives of great men all remind us, 

We can make our lives sublime. 
And, departing, leave behind us. 

Footprints on the sands of time ; 
Footprints, that perhaps another, 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main ; 
A forlorn, despondent brother, 

Seeing, shall take heart again." 



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